Editing Plasmodium falciparum (section)

===Discovery===
A German physician, [[Johann Friedrich Meckel]], must have been the first to see ''P. falciparum'' but without knowing what it was. In 1847, he reported the presence of black pigment granules from the blood and spleen of a patient who died of malaria. The French Army physician [[Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran]], while working at Bône Hospital (now [[Annaba]] in Algeria), correctly identified the parasite as a causative pathogen of malaria in 1880. He presented his discovery before the [[French Academy of Medicine]] in Paris and published it in ''[[The Lancet]]'' in 1881. He gave it the scientific name ''Oscillaria malariae''.<ref name=lalchhandama>{{cite journal|last1=Lalchhandama|first1=K.|title=The making of modern malariology: from miasma to mosquito- malaria theory|journal=Science Vision|date=2014|volume=14|issue=1|pages=3–17|url=http://www.sciencevision.org/current_issue/dl/Lalchhandama.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140427025145/http://www.sciencevision.org/current_issue/dl/Lalchhandama.pdf|archive-date=2014-04-27}}</ref> However, his discovery was received with skepticism, mainly because by that time, leading physicians such as [[Edwin Klebs|Theodor Albrecht Edwin Klebs]] and [[Corrado Tommasi-Crudeli]] claimed that they had discovered a bacterium (which they called ''Bacillus malariae'') as the pathogen of malaria. Laveran's discovery was only widely accepted after five years when [[Camillo Golgi]] confirmed the parasite using better microscopes and staining techniques. Laveran was awarded the [[Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine]] in 1907 for his work. In 1900, the Italian zoologist [[Giovanni Battista Grassi]] categorized ''[[Plasmodium]]'' species based on the timing of fever in the patient; malignant tertian malaria was caused by ''Laverania malariae'' (now ''P. falciparum''), benign tertian malaria by ''Haemamoeba vivax'' (now ''[[Plasmodium vivax|P. vivax]]''), and quartan malaria by ''Haemamoeba malariae'' (now ''[[Plasmodium malariae|P. malariae]]'').<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Cox|first1=Francis EG|title=History of the discovery of the malaria parasites and their vectors|journal=Parasites & Vectors|date=2010|volume=3|issue=1|pages=5|doi=10.1186/1756-3305-3-5|pmid=20205846|pmc=2825508 |doi-access=free }}{{open access}}</ref>

The British physician [[Patrick Manson]] formulated the [[mosquito-malaria theory]] in 1894; until that time, malarial parasites were believed to be spread in air as miasma, a Greek word for pollution.<ref name=lalchhandama/> His colleague [[Ronald Ross]] of the Indian Medical Service validated the theory while working in India. Ross discovered in 1897 that malarial parasites lived in certain mosquitoes. The next year, he demonstrated that a malarial parasite of birds could be transmitted by mosquitoes from one bird to another. Around the same time, Grassi demonstrated that ''P. falciparum'' was transmitted in humans only by female [[Anopheles|anopheline mosquito]] (in his case ''[[Anopheles claviger]]'').<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Baccetti|first1=B|title=History of the early dipteran systematics in Italy: from Lyncei to Battista Grassi|journal=Parassitologia|date=2008|volume=50|issue=3–4|pages=167–172|pmid=20055226}}</ref> Ross, Manson and Grassi were nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1902. Under controversial circumstances, only Ross was selected for the award.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Capanna|first1=E|title=Grassi versus Ross: who solved the riddle of malaria?|journal=International Microbiology|date=2006|volume=9|issue=1|pages=69–74|pmid=16636993}}</ref>

There was a long debate on the taxonomy. It was only in 1954 the [[International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature]] officially approved the binominal ''Plasmodium falciparum''.<ref name=chwatt>{{cite journal|last1=Bruce-Chwatt|first1=L.J.|title=Falciparum nomenclature|journal=Parasitology Today|date=1987|volume=3|issue=8|pages=252|doi=10.1016/0169-4758(87)90153-0|pmid=15462972}}</ref> The valid genus ''Plasmodium'' was created by two Italian physicians [[Ettore Marchiafava]] and [[Angelo Celli]] in 1885. The Greek word ''plasma'' means "mould" or "form"; ''oeidēs'' means "to see" or "to know." The species name was introduced by an American physician [[William Henry Welch]] in 1897.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Christophers|first1=R|last2=Sinton|first2=JA|title=Correct Name of Malignant Tertian Parasite|journal=British Medical Journal|date=1938|volume=2|issue=4065|pages=1130–1134|pmid=20781927|pmc=2211005|doi=10.1136/bmj.2.4065.1130}}</ref> It is derived from the Latin ''falx'', meaning "sickle" and ''parum'' meaning "like or equal to another".<ref name=chwatt/>